Because I Love You
by Virgo Writer
Summary: Drabbles collected under the theme of sacrifice. CCT: The Forsaken Cardcaptor: Because some things are worse than forgetting . . . implied SxS
1. Don't Break Even

**Because I Love You**

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This is the first in what will hopefully be a collection around the theme of sacrifice. Most, if not all, will have SxS themes, but because sacrifice is what ties the whole thing together, it won't always be a happy ending.

Disclaimer: I don't own CCS.

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Don't Break Even

It had been two years since he left. For good this time. He had returned briefly for their upper secondary school years and it had all seemed perfect for a while, but he left at the end with nothing but a broken 'I'm sorry' to remember him by.

Sakura often wondered why he had left her. Was it something that she had done? Had she upset him somehow? Or was it simply that he stopped loving her and saw leaving as the easiest way to end a nearly six year relationship?

No answers were ever forthcoming and his picture just stared back at her, his emotions hidden behind a mask of indifference. He was gone from her life and years later she was still clinging to the memory of his smile just to get through the day.

Her life was at a stand still. She worked a job she hated in order to pay for studies she had no interest in. She picked law and business because it made her feel close to him and because every now and then the name 'Li' would come up in her classes and she would smile briefly as she thought of the one she loved. A small, perverse part of her brain had secretly hoped she might run into him, but the last two years had brought no such luck.

The job she hated was at the campus café. People were rude, no one ever talked to her, and they all assumed she was some ambitionless drudgen working away while they all made something of themselves. There were days she felt like screaming at them 'I'm a fucking law student!' until she ran out of air. She didn't know how they could all be so smug when at least she had a decent work effort to fall back on if all the promises of higher education setting them up for life turned out to be a lie.

At times like these she wish she'd brought her course book with her to hide under the counter, but it was too late for that. She starred out the window having nothing better to do in the slow period after ten than let her mind wander to what could have been and how nothing in her life had turned out the way she planned. Nothing bu -

"Hi, could I please get a mochaccino, extra sweet?" a voice asked politely, jarring her from rather depressing thoughts.

"Coming right up," she said with false cheer as she hustled over to the coffee machine. A small smile graced her lips, glad that the customer at least had the decency to say please rather than simply demand that his copious amounts of caffeine by prepared immediately. It was so rare for her to be treated like an actual human being.

"Where's the girl that's usually here?" he asked by way of conversation. "Kimiko-san?"

"Kimiya," Sakura corrected, eyes focused on the delicate task of frothing milk. "She had a test so we swapped shifts."

"I think I remember her saying so," he commented. "She assured me her replacement was just as capable as herself. I'm kinda picky about my coffee."

"As you should be," Sakura agreed her mood lifted as she engaged in conversation as an equal. "Life's too short to drink bad coffee."

"That's exactly what I always say," he replied with a hearty chuckle.

Sakura turned off the steaming wand as the milk was warmed to just shy of boiling. She glanced up, readying herself to speak but found herself struck dumb by a pair of startling amber eyes.

"Syaoran," she gasped as the jug of steaming milk fell from her hands.

"Sakura," he answered at the same moment, his shocked expression mirroring her own.

Flustered, she tried to busy herself by returning to the task of preparing his coffee, starting from scratch and switching the full milk for soy milk, which she knew he preferred. "H-how are you?" she asked, forcing herself to sound like it was just an ordinary conversation, catching up with an old friend and not her first encounter in two years with the love of her life.

"Sakura," he said, in a low tone that warned her he wasn't fooled by her attempts at joviality. "I think we should talk. You probably have some questions, and I –"

"There you go," she said perkily, cutting him off. "Hopefully it's to your liking, Li-kun."

He frowned. "Sakura, are you free t-"

"No," she cut in. "I'm working."

"Maybe tomorrow?" he asked.

"I'm probably busy."

He sighed but nodded in understanding. "I come here most days, around about this time if you ever want to talk. I just . . ." he trailed off, sadness evident in his eyes as he looked at her. "It's really good to see you, Sakura," he said softly.

"Yeah, you too," she choked out. "If you don't mind I've got some people to serve and . . ."

"It's fine," he assured her. "Hopefully I'll see you around."

_'Hopefully . . .'_

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It was three weeks before Sakura took him up on his offer and only because he had taken to almost stalking her until she agreed. Kimiya had told him when her shifts were and so he showed up at least once during each of her shifts as though to remind her of his offer.

"I'm really glad you decided to meet me, Sakura," he started. "I was starting to develop a serious coffee addiction just so I had an excuse to see you."

"You know we do hot chocolates as well," she reminded him, her voice low and emotionless.

"Tea too, I assume," he agreed, "but if I wanted tea or hot chocolate I would just go home. My apartment is like five minutes walk from campus."

"Why are you so okay?" she complained suddenly. "Why is this so hard for me and so easy for you?"

He looked at her gently, the same look he used to give her when they were together. "Because I'm just so happy to see you, Sakura, that I can't think of anything else," he told her sincerely. "I just wish you were in better spirits. Where's the beautiful, genki girl I fell in love with, ne?"

"You broke her," Sakura told him coolly. "This is what's left."

"I'm sorry, Sakura," he answered. "I really am."

"If you're _so_ sorry and if you loved me as much as you said you did, then why did you leave me, Syaoran?" she exclaimed, letting go of the question that had been her burden for the past two years. "At least tell me that."

"I will," he told her, "but let's walk as we talk."

She nodded and the two left the café together, Syaoran guiding them towards a more secluded part of campus where they could be afforded some privacy.

"The clan elders gave me an ultimatum," he explained to her. "They said I could marry you on the condition that I took over as the head of the corporation before I turn twenty-five.

"If I didn't, then they would give the position to my sister Xiefa and I could pursue a degree in archeology like I've wanted since I was ten," he finished.

"So you choose archeology over me?" she asked, anger the only thing keeping her from crying at his admission. "At least now I know that looking at centuries old garbage makes you happier than I ever did." She knew her father would be killed if he heard her talk like that about his profession, but it was the best way to get her point across.

"It's not like that, Sakura," he said desperately. "It's not even how miserable I knew I'd be as head of Li Corp. I did it for you."

"You left me for me?" she asked him sarcastically. "Don't pretend like you were doing me a favour, Syaoran. You did this for you, and nobody else. You decided that your dreams were more important than what we had, and I was a fool for thinking otherwise."

"No, they're not, Sakura," he told her, his voice rising as they argued. "You would have been miserable as my wife, Sakura. I would have neglected you. I would have spent long nights at the office, spending all my time and energy on those things, coming home to you when I could and then treating you like dirt even though you'd be the only good thing in my life.

"I'd drink myself to an early grave. Probably hit you on a bad night. Have affairs. I would make your life a living hell," he assured her, his thoughts full of self-deprecation and loathing as he thought of what could have been.

"Syaoran, you are not your father," she told him. "You don't have to make his mistakes."

"They're unavoidable," he told her. "My father was going to be a human rights lawyer before he married my mother," he said, revealing a small part of his past that had never been known to Sakura. "He gave up everything he believed in to be with her – to be a Li – just so he could commit the same human rights violations he had sworn at law school to prevent.

"That's what killed him," he said sadly, crying for the first time in years. "It wasn't the alcohol or the telephone pole or whatever else they wrote on the damned autopsy report. It was his own hypocrisy and he ended up hating my mother for it.

"I never wanted to do that to you, Sakura," he finished sadly. "I don't want to end up hating you."

She nodded slowly, tears leaking form her eyes as she took him slowly in her arms, touching the one she loved for the first time since he left. "I-I understand," she told him quietly, the words leaving her as he sobbed quietly into her shoulder.

She wanted to tell him how much he hurt her in leaving, how much she loved him even now and wanted to be with him. She wanted to scream at him and tell him that he should have let her decide what life she wanted to lead instead of making that choice for both of them. There were so many things she wanted to say to him, but there was no point. It all would have ended the same. She wouldn't let him choose her in the same way that he wouldn't let her subject herself to the life he foresaw – they cared too much to subject the other to that misery.

And so she just held him close and told him the three words she knew he needed to hear.

"I forgive you."


	2. Card Captor Touya

**Because I Love You**

Disclaimer: I do not own Card Captor Sakura

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Summary: Because there is always a greater tragedy.

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**CCT: The Forsaken Card Captor**

"I will not fight you!" Kinomoto Touya screamed at the silver haired angel that smiled at him cruelly. "Yuki is my friend," he insisted, not knowing that in only five years time there would be another candidate repeating those very same words.

"Then you forfeit," the angel – the judge – uttered impassively, unmoved by the desperate looks of the two young teenagers before him, and their young teacher. "And a great catastrophe will befall the world."

The children gasped, and he continued, only pausing for dramatic effect. "Every person ever touched by the cards will lose their feelings for the one they love most, and it will be all your fault."

Touya opened his mouth to protest but was cut off by another voice. "You can't do that," Li Fanren insisted, her coal black eyes filling with tears. "You can't take away people's feelings like that. You can't be so cruel."

"You must pay the price," Yue insisted coolly. "If you do not pass my judgement, then that is my prerogative."

"So be it," Touya answered with a sigh. He began to chant, calling his staff into existence. "Key that holds the power of light. Release!" He attacked immediately; sending out fiery as he knew Yue would be more vulnerable to his complement.

The fire swirled around him, but Yue had Watery on his side and doused the flames. With a simple, elegant gesture, the angel sent torrents of water in their direction, smiling that cruel smile of his the whole time.

"Freeze!" Touya called, halting the attack. But it was quickly followed by yet another wave of water forcing Touya and his companions back from the shrine.

"It looks as though you are all washed up," Yue suggested without emotion, seemingly oblivious to what may or may not have been a joke. "There is no honour in defeat."

"I will not let that happen," Touya answered in determination. "Wood!" he called, calling on his strongest and most loyal card without thinking. Wood was his first capture, and he had been able to depend on the wood spirit in even the hardest times.

"I don't think so," Yue answered as the vines shot towards him. The branches immediately diverted their path, wrapping instead around the candidate in a strong hold. In his recklessness, he had forgotten that the Wood – like Watery – was loyal to the moon guardian.

"You have been judged, Kinomoto Touya," the angel snarled cruelly. "And you have been found wanting."

And those were the last words Touya heard before everything went blank.

Touya woke up groggily, finding it hard to get his bearings. His memories seemed clouded, and he wondered if maybe the whole thing had merely been a dream. He looked for Keroberus to share it with him, but his guardian was nowhere in sight.

"Probably at Fanren's house scoffing mango pudding and custard tarts," Touya muttered reproachfully, his own mouth watering a little at the thought of Li Yelan's egg custard tarts. He resolved to spend his afternoon at the Li mansion, knowing that Yelan would ensure his favourite dessert was on hand.

With a sigh, he began his morning routine, getting dressed promptly into his school uniform. He frowned a little at his reflection, wishing his middle school uniform wasn't quite so 'darling'.

Next in his routine was waking his six-year-old baby sister for school. "Wake up, squirt," he demanded, shaking her shoulder. "Your boyfriend's waiting," he added with a smirk, knowing that tended to get her up in a hurry.

Sakura woke sleepily, glancing at him curiously. "I don't have a boyfweind, 'Nii-chan," she answered, tilting her head sweetly to the side in confusion as she wiped the sleep form her eyes with fisted hands. "The only boys I know are you and 'Tou-san."

"So Syaoran-kun doesn't count as a boy, anymore?" he asked, waiting for her to start blushing and protesting. The expected response never came.

"Who is Sha-o-ron-kun?" she asked instead, her eyes narrowing in confusion. "'Nii-chan vewy stwange today. You must be sick," she suggested, reaching up to feel his forehead like their father would do whenever they were unwell.

"Stop trying to be funny, Sakura-chan," he replied, swatting her warm hand away. "Just hurry up and get ready, squirt. I wanted to talk to Fanren before class."

She continued to frown at him, but complied with his instructions. Touya headed downstairs, not understanding why his sister suddenly thought it was funny to pretend she didn't know her own best friend. Syaoran and Sakura had been pretty much inseparable since he saved her bird from the rain. She had practically been in love with him (or as in love as you could be at that age) since she was four.

Touya glanced at the walls as he made his descent. It was strange to see them covered with such old pictures, and he wondered briefly why his dad would have suddenly taken away their most recent portraits and replaced them with old ones. _'Maybe Sonomi-san has taken the frames to be cleaned and didn't want the walls to be bare,'_ he reasoned succinctly as it seemed very much like the sort of thing his future stepmother might do. Daidouji Sonomi was nothing if not house proud.

"Where is Tomo-chan?" he asked his father when he noted the absence of both Sonomi and his honorary little sister (and almost step-sister to be correct), Tomoyo. His half-sister, Akina, was also missing, but that was not unusual, and it was fairly likely that the young infant would still be sleeping with her mother this early in the morning.

"Tomo who?" his father replied, briefly glancing up from his morning paper.

Touya huffed and scowled in response. "Just so you all know, I don't find this the least bit funny," he said as he walked out of the house, forgetting that he was supposed to walk Sakura to school. He made his way to the corner where he habitually met Fanren, her siblings. Syaoran and Feimei were both in elementary school like Sakura, where as Xiefa and Fuutie both went to Seijou High School, which was the same school Fanren and him self would be attending next year. For the first time in the three years he had been walking to school with the Li's he had actually beaten them to their meeting place.

_'Just shows how much time it takes imouto-chan and Tomo-chan to get ready,'_ he reasoned with a shake of his head, preparing himself to wait. His watch told him that he was already a couple of minutes late when he arrived, so he didn't expect to be waiting long.

But he did. He waited ten minutes before he got suspicious and decided to go check things out at the Li Mansion. The mansion had been in Li clan for almost half a millennium. It had previously belonged to Clow Reed, and was where Touya had accidentally come across the Book of Clow.

The mansion was desolate when he arrived. There was no indication whatsoever that Fanren and her family had occupied the house for the past four years. It looked completely abandoned, as though none of them had ever existed.

Yuki's place was even worse. His house didn't even exist in whatever fantasy world Touya had fallen into. It was like his two best friends had vanished into thin air.

School was the worst, however. Nobody seemed to have even heard of Fanren or Yuki. Even Mizuki-san, who stood up the front assisting Terada-sensei indifferently with his lesson, gave him a strange look at the mention of Li Fanren and Tsukishiro Yukito.

And then it struck him. The great tragedy that would befall the earth. They had forgotten.

His father had forgotten the one woman that had helped him through the tragic death of his first wife, and the life they had created.

Sakura had forgotten the innocent love she held for her best friend and one true love.

Kaho had forgotten her blossoming feelings for Terada Yoshiyuki, and he, likewise, had forgotten his feelings for her.

And himself . . . Touya was in an even sadder position because he remembered everything, only his love was gone and that somehow seemed much worse even if it was only a fraction of the tragedy that others endured. He wondered if she even remembered her own love – Yukito – or maybe even him, but suspected that they had lost even more than was anticipated.

He slipped out of the classroom unnoticed; no one would care whether or not he attended. Once he was alone, he did something he hadn't done since his mother died almost four years ago. He cried, and he didn't let up until he felt another presence in the hall alerting him to their existence.

"Clow-san," he gasped, meeting the dark blue eyes of a dark haired gentlemen dressed in navy finery. He jumped to his feet and bowed respectfully.

"Please help me, Clow-san," he begged. "The great tragedy . . . I have to fix it . . . for every one . . . for-"

"For Fanren," Clow finished for him, in a deep regal voice. He chuckled lightly, seemingly lost in some other thought. At least he hoped it was some other thought, because Touya saw nothing funny about the present one.

"Predicting the future," Clow began with practiced ease, "now that has always been a tricky one. Especially the finer details.

"The further away something is, the harder it gets to distinguish between days, and places, and incidents that appear almost identical bar one trifling detail," he explained. "Four years – that is all there was between it, and it's so hard to see the difference from so far away," he said distantly.

"But I see it now," he said, snapping back to the reality. "I see it so very clearly. Not one Card Captor Kinomoto, but two," he said holding up his fingers for emphasis. "I foresaw that the card captor would love the moon guardian, and I was right for one of them – although he was not her destiny, and that the moon guardian would love the card captor, I was right again, but for the other.

"The great tragedy has befallen all those whose lives were touched by the cards," he spoke ominously. "There is a way you can prevent it, but you mustn't. If you do, then an even greater tragedy will befall the one person most dear to you."

"Sakura," Touya said, cautioning a guess.

"Sakura," Clow confirmed. "To lose the feelings for your most important person, that is a tragedy, but you already feel that there is something worse. You already know that there is a greater pain.

"These people will survive," Clow said, gesturing flippantly over the halls. "They will find other loves. There is hope for them. But she may not."

"How can you say that?" Touya asked. "You can't toy with people like this. Imouto-chan has forgotten all about the gaki, and you say there is worse in store for her than this? I don't believe you."

"Then I will show you," Clow said. The magician called upon his staff, and activated a card that Touya recognised as 'The Through'. Moments later they were once again at the shrine, and he was watching himself be bound by Yue's tricks.

_"No!" the bound Touya cried. "I will not let this happen. FIERY!" he called, not even using his staff as a conduit._

_A blast of fire even more powerful than the first aimed itself directly at the moon guardian. He was absorbed in the flames, caught off guard, and was quickly defeated._

_"You . . . you passed?" the moon guardian gaped, uncertain of his new master. "You have averted the tragedy," he said solemnly. "I will serve you."_

The scene changed. There was no sense of time passing, but somehow Touya knew that at least eight years stood between the first scene and the second, even before he saw himself walk in with a strange girl attached to his side.

Touya gave the master sorcerer a raised eyebrow.

"You'll get used to her," Clow shrugged in response.

_"Kaiju!" the older Touya called, seeming unbothered by the girl nuzzled into his shoulder. "Your boyfriend's here."_

_His little sister stomped down the stairs in an instant, slamming the heel of her stiletto into his foot with absolutely no sympathy. "I am NOT a kaiju," she said, emphasising her point with a twist of her heel._

_"Aren't you going to tell me he's not your boyfriend?" Touya asked, appearing indifferent to her torture._

_Sakura just blushed coyly. "How do I look?" she asked, avoiding his question._

Touya smiled at the look of his little sister all grown up. She looked lovely. She looked like their mother. She looked amazing.

_"You look amazing, imouto-chan," the older Touya said, offering her an encouraging kiss on the cheek. "Syaoran-kun will love it, just as he loves you."_

_Sakura blushed again, before an awkward cough alerted them to the subject of Touya's encouraging words patiently waiting to escort his girlfriend to their first school dance. "He's right, Sakura," the boy offered, sporting a deep red blush of his own. "You have never looked more lovely," he said as he boldly pressed his lips to her cheek._

_"I expect her home by ten," Touya called as the two stood in the doorway ready to leave._

_"Matte!" Sonomi called. "We must have a picture." Several cameras flashed, including one from the Li residence to capture the momentous occasion._

_"Sakura-chan and Li-kun are so cute," Sonomi sighed. "Don't you think, anata?"_

_Fujitaka nodded as he wrapped his wife in his embrace. He chuckled as a thought occurred to him – he doubted that Sonomi would find it quite as 'cute' when their youngest began dating. And he doubted that Touya or Sonomi would be quite so content if they knew that Sakura wasn't the only one with a date to the dance that evening . . ._

Touya frowned, not understanding the warning he was supposed to heed. Everyone looked so happy. His father looked happy. Sonomi looked happy. Even he looked happy with the strange woman attached to him. And Sakura looked the happiest of all.

But already the scene was changing. Eight more years had gone by, and this time no one looked happy.

_Sakura skidded to a stop, forced back along the dirt floor by her own propulsion._

_"Please," she begged the dark figure dressed in Li clan robes. "Please give me one more chance."_

_The figure just laughed. "You are not worthy," he told her, eyes narrowed spitefully. "You are unworthy to lead our clan along side the heir. You may be his mistress, but you shall never be his wife._

_"You will marry Li Meilin," the figure commanded, turning now to Syaoran who stood on the side lines, unable to do anything as his own love was beaten by his kinsman. "She lacks any magic, but even she was able to pass this simple test._

_"Do what you like with her," he suggested as Syaoran moved to comfort his love. "But know that any child born of this SCUM will not bear the Li name."_

_"Syaoran . . . I-" Sakura began, apologising for her failure._

_"No, Sakura," he cut in, not allowing her to admonish herself. "If I can't have you by my side, then I refuse to take my place as leader. I refuse to be a part of something that would show such little respect to my future wife!" he roared at the elder._

_The man simply scoffed. "Li Juan is happy to take your place," he said simply._

_"Syaoran, you can't," Sakura told him softly. "I won't let you. Not after everything you worked for._

_"Meilin-san will be a worthy wife," she offered heartbreakingly. "And I . . . I will love you forever."_

_"Wo ai ni, Ying Fa," he spoke softly, clutching her gently to himself._

_"Wo ai ni, Xiao Lang."_

"Don't show me anymore," Touya asked, watching his sister broken and beaten in the arms of the only one she would forever love. "I understand. There is a greater tragedy. It is better she forget him now and find another to give her heart, then to give her whole heart and have it ripped away."

Clow seemed to smile at this. "Who said there was another?" Clow asked cryptically. "Destiny has a way of finding itself. I may have failed to foresee the interference of my descendents, but once a Li sets his heart on something, he will not be deterred. Of this I am certain.

"There is hope," Clow added cryptically as he handed Touya the book of Clow. "There is Sakura."

And so time passed – four years to be exact – and then one day Touya knew what he had to do. He snuck down into his father's office, and slid the gold bound book in between two of his father's heavy Egyptian textbooks.

"I guess we'll be seeing one another again soon," he told the lion like figure emblazoned on the cover. "I think you'll like your new master, Keroberos. She's a softie, just like Fanren, and I bet she'll give you lots of pudding and turn you into a big ball of lard.

"And you, Yue," he added, thinking of his friend that had suddenly reappeared almost two years ago now. "You'll learn to love her with time."

With one last look back the book that had changed his life, he left the room, his sacrifice clear.

As tragic as it was to lose your feelings for the one you cared for most, there was a worser fate. To forget is a tragedy, but Touya . . . he would remember.

~FIN~

The idea of this occurred to me when I thought about how powerful Touya really is - technically he's more powerful than Sakura seeing as his power was able to sustain Yue and Sakura's was not. It thus made me wonder why Touya hadn't found the book of Clow and then I thought, well maybe he did and . . . voila. Let me know what you think.


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